


Life is but a dream

by SoniaWilde



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoniaWilde/pseuds/SoniaWilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a modern London setting, the young girl Bilbo Baggins is looking for a job as an art expert and once in a while she has some strange dreams about a far away land.</p>
<p>Erebor and Mirkwood are two famous shops in London of luxury and ancient items and they both claim ownership upon the Jewel of the Kings which will be sold at an auction soon.</p>
<p>How can love enter in all of this? Why those dreams seems so real?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Fem!Baggins
> 
> AU/What If?
> 
> Het!Bagginshield (sorry, I love bagginshield in every way but this story came up like an het! No hate, please!)

_There, in a hole in the ground, lived a Hobbit._

A she Hobbit, if we want to be correct. Her name was Bilbo and she was the oldest and the only child of Belladonna Took and her husband, Bungo Baggins. A funny story, those two: Belladonna in her youth was the kind of woman who wanted adventure – for how much a Hobbit can ever wish for one – and she played mostly with the boys of her age, rather than girls, which should be usual. Bungo however was the perfect Hobbit, the quiet one with his belly soft since he was born: full of food – great food – that was his second favourite thing.  
But what was his first favourite thing? Going out and playing with Belladonna, of course. When he was a kid he could hardly wait for the creamy dessert on his table while his thoughts were on the stories that that girl could invent to play with. If this was the aim of our story I’d really like to investigate how these two stopped being children and began to know exactly what felleings bonded one to each other. Anyway this is a matter which is always difficult to explain because it does not have a rule, a standard: it usually comes in a different way for each one of us and you would probably find it ‘funny’ or do not like the way it came to these two.  
Anyway what id important is that it came, because Belladonna and Bungo married each other (in a great, great wedding. All Hobbiton was adorned as if it was Christmas, but it was summer and everyone smoked the best pipe-weed and drank the finest ale and spoke their names with smiles and wishes) and after a short time our main character saw the light of this world.  
Bilbo Baggins was born on a beutiful day, in the season that comes at the end of the summer: was not summer – the crops were overflowing in the silos – nor autumn – you could still run to the river without your coat and not feel any cold.  
The day in which our story takes place comes shortly before her birthday, her twentieth birthday. For some unfair reason she had already lost her parents: her mother died three years ago from a disease and her father followed shortly after because he never lived without Belladonna and he was not able to learn how he could. Bilbo lived alone and we cannot say she was sad: of course she missed her parents but she was a happy and honest Hobbit and her gaffer Hamfast helped her with the heaviest work. Once in a while some male Hobbits came and tried to court her but she seemed uninterested in that kind of business: she was too young – she said – and she wanted to live a bit on her own before having someone to look after. Not that she didn’t want to! Maybe the truth was that nobody really impressed her and she wanted to live the sparkle of love. Why to be married if there is no love? Why take care of someone if you do not care about this someone? And I think we all do agree.  
So she was there, sitting among some of the brightest flowers that grew in that hot but temperate summer and while she was smoking her pipe – you see, that habit in the Hobbit world does not qualify simply as a male habit, although mainly men smoke – and for some strange reason her mind brought to her a memory about her mother.

Belladonna and Bilbo were sitting on the carpet, at the middle of Bagend and the mother was talking to her nine year-old daughter. To be more exact she was telling her a tale or two about people that were not Hobbits, about places that were not The Shire. She was talking about the tall and blonde elves of Mirkwood, about giant spiders living in a wood where daylight never manages to enter, about dwarves fighting against ogres. It seemed that Belladonna had once again found her childhood, her Took spirit: she was miming every creature she was mentioning and the little Bilbo with some missing teeth was laughing and had sparkles in her eyes while was listening to all those far away places that looked like nothing she’d ever seen. After a while Bungo came to his women and took the little child into his arms, raising her from the ground saying that it was time to stop dreaming about fairytales, it was time to eat the exquisite meat of home and drink a plenty of fresh water. Bilbo had a little smirk on her face, she was disappointed and she asked her father when the time would come in which they could go on an adventure. The quiet Bungo that cared more about his quiet life than anything else put a finger on those little pink lips and smiling said that adventures where not a good thing.  
“Why aren’t ‘em?” said the little kid in her pinky dress. You could see she had a curious mind.  
“Because being on an adventure means that you’ll never be in time for dinner!” said the man and they both laughed.

Coming back to present times, the grown-up Bilbo asked herself why this memory could have possibily been involved with the light, white clouds running towards the east that she was watching. She liked days like this one: a blue sky with a gentle breeze, the running games of the clouds and the usual quiet life of the Shire going on around her hill. Oh, if she liked it: she loved it.  
As the time passed by her impetuous, dreaming nature she inherited from her mother was quietly put in silence from the quiet, simple nature she took from her father and no one doubted she was a Baggins, in every inch. And who, in that sunny, beautiful day, could ever think this was going to change?

The stranger came from the west. He had a long, dark blue coat that touched the earth of the shire, in fact the edges of it were dirty by the powder itself picked up while his owner was walking. The cloth had a hood that covered half of his face and several Hobbits that crossed his path asked quietly to themselves if he could ever see where he was going, and the fact that he passed by at least twice every street made that doubt quite legitimate. The only part visible below his hood was the lower part of his face: a pair of thin lips surrounded by a black, thick beard no more longer than his chin. Attached to the beard were two or three braids enlaced by some silver clips. He as taller than a Hobbit but shorter than a man or a wizard, or an elf. With a deep voice he asked more than once directions to find Bagend and rumours began to spread about that young, beautiful Hobbit.

However – as always – the rumours were known before the stranger even reached Bagend so, of course, Bilbo had no idea why people looked strangely at her while passing in front of her house. Shortly tired of this unusual behaviour, she looked at the sky that was turning from blue to violet and at her pipe that had served her well, laid unlit and cold next to her. She decided she could should go inside, to cook herself a fresh fish she had bought that day at the market and relax with a book in her bed. Suddenly relieved from that thought she turned her back from the street and lifted a bit of her skirt in order to climb the little steps separating her from the door of her home, but a deep voice interrupted her movements.

“Is this Bagend?” the voice was deep and rude, and it seemed to the Hobbit that its owner was trying to say only the necessary words, without any excess, not even the words needed to be polite. She turned her back to see the stranger that the whole Shire had already met and her only feeling was puzzlement.

“Yes, it is.” She said and it was amazing to hear how different these voices sounded. Bilbo’s voice was kind of harmonic, and sweet but not too high. “Do I know you, sir?” she added shortly after.

Even the stranger looked puzzled. For the first time since he had come to the Shire he took off his hood from his face and looked all around quite curiously. But solemnly curious, with his straight posture and closed lips. You could assume he was curious only looking at his eyes that seemed deeper than his voice. After some short moments that seemed longer than they were, he answered. “No, of course not. Could you please tell Mr.Baggins that I have arrived? I suppose I’m late but this damn house was really difficult to find; why would anyone live—“ he stopped because Bilbo interrupted him.

“Listen, I hate being ill-mannered – and heaven knows I hate it – but I am MISS Baggins and I wasn’t expecting anyone. But of course your unexpected visit is no reason of bother” she stopped for a while and walked straight to the little wooden gate that was the entrance to his property “but your manners, sir, are. My house is the biggest and the most comfortable house in all the Shire and you must be blind and a bit of a fool to not have seen it from below the hill. And if you have seen it, but could not reached it easily, you should be even more foolish. However if you want to pay me a visit, you should not discuss the position of my house whatsoever.” And she was quite firm in her thoughts.

The stranger looked surprised and not in a good way. It seemed that he was not used to being interrupted and he certainly did not take that interruption well. When he opened his mouth to talk again his tone was the same as the one of the Hobbit had used and you could see by looking at his face that he certainly did not regret what he was about to do. By taking back the expression the hobbit said he began to speak “However, if you knew who I was you’d never dare to speak to me with such words!” his anger was quiet, full of pride above all things and Bilbo hated proud people so much.

“Then” she made few steps back without losing eye contact so she could still defy him. Frankly she didn’t care if he was a prince, a king or just a mad man: manners were manners and that’s how Bagginses rolled in the Shire “maybe it isn’t me who you are looking for. You must have mistaken the name! Have a good day, sir.” she bowed a little with her head and was ready to turn her back to the stranger when suddenly he shouted with a voice that sounded like thunder.

“I am Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thraìn, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, Durin’s breed. And I have not mistaken any name. Gandalf sends me to you. Well, he sent me to Master Baggins which I presume should have been Miss Baggins!” he said the last thing with a note of bother in his voice. It has to be said that gender equality was not the main strength of the dwarven specie – yes, our stranger was a dwarf. Surely they did not treat their women badly, not at all: that would have been barbaric! However they had précise ideas on what were the roles of the women and which were the men’s ones and the quest that Thorin had in mind was indeed a men’s quest, not to men-tion the fact that his fellowship was formed by thirteen male dwarves: a woman could have been a strong distraction among them. Even his younger sister, the lovely Dis, which had a right on the house of his fathers knew what her role was: at home waiting for the warriors to reclaim their right-ful home and come back to her. This, obviously, did not include several threats on her brother’s life if any of his two sons would have been injured or dead. Putting aside the thought of his sister, Tho-rin asked himself why didn't Gandalf not say it before, why he lied? They discussed that having a burglar was necessary yet not indispensable: they could have tried to chase away the dragon without it even if it would have been more risky. But Gandalf assured him he knew a quite skillfull burglar that lived in this peaceful valley named the Shire where they had no king, no monarchy but a mayor, and animals and farm life. The majestic gold had no attraction to most of the Hobbits – the creatures that lived there and only there – and therefore they were true at heart and never greedy in anything but in food. This thing had a particular importance for Thorin because it meant that the burglar surely would have not discussed the reward.

Lost in his thoughts and his speech he didn’t notice that the Hobbit's face suddenly had turned red and a hand was upon her lips while she was looking at Thorin. The gentleman in the dwarf soon showed up and a little bit worried asked the lady what was troubling her.  
“Y-your epithet sir” Bilbo was shocked “maybe it gives you a lot of honour in a tavern but it’s not appropri-ate in front of a lady!” shocked but firm, with her sharp tongue. And Thorin became really angry.

“Milady!” he almost shouted “My nickname is not referred to any of my my manly and most vulgar virtue. It has a noble meaning and you cause me a great offense by mistaking it!” even he was red in the face. His cheeks were burning like they were bonfires during midnight. His appellate was given to him in reference to the battle of Moria when he showed to his people the mighty king he was meant to be and even if his manly virtues were celebrated too, he surely did not put them in front of his political and military role. He was a king and a leader before being a man, and a gentleman too. He lowered his voice and looked into thin air, suddenly sad in his eyes while he began to remember the day that long ago had seen his grandfather die and his father disappear.  
“It was during the battle of Moria” he said and Bilbo was strangely attracted by this speech even if he only pronounced those few words. “We already lost a great number of lives – we were fighting against the ogres – and even the most helpful lady called Hope had left us. My people was dying and our enemy was strong when suddenly their leader killed my grandfather. We were already without a home and I could not bear to lose my relatives too. So the anger became my leader” he was still looking into the air, his pupils large and his eyes wet. His hand was holding the wooden little gate so tight that some splinters had already wedged themselves into his skin but he did not seem to notice that. “and I launched myself against the enemy. A pale, white ogre that was almost six foot tall. Azog was his name.” Thorin stopped talking for a while and he clamped his jaws. The memory was still vivid in his head even if many years already passed. It ended well, but to see your people die in front of you while knowing that you promised to protect them, makes you the most miserable man on the Earth and a king, more than anyone else, could be destroyed by that feeling. “Holding, as a shield, no more than a piece of oaken trunk. I defended myself until I finally won” he licked his lips, pausing. It seemed that the sweet fruit of victory and achieved revenge was still there, hanging on those red, thin lines. “by cutting his arms off. It was the sweetest of pleasures, seeing him going to die in his dirty hole, losing all his putrid blood.” The tale finished and it was then and only then that Bilbo realized that the silence around them was thick and absolute.  
It was dark and the birds were surely sleeping except for the nightingale that only in that moment started singing and it was the perfect sound, the perfect melody for the moment. Our lady Hobbit had listened carefully to the all tale of Moria and her sympathetic spirit wanted, above all things, to comfort this man – well, this dwarf, that suffered so much.  
“So, your epithet was because of your weapon then.” She said, opening the little gate and, by doing this, touching Thorin’s hand for a moment.  
She couldn’t think about having her dear ones killed by an ogre or a monster like that one, she would have been devasted. So, despite the fact that she wasn’t expecting any visit and forgetting the former rudeness, she invited him in. “Please, come in. I can make some tea for the both of us and you will tell me your purposes.”


	2. Is it the end or the beginning?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Erebor shop was selling dreams, not just simple objects. Found by Nain in 1784, it took place in Fleet Street at the number 84 and because of this all of the Durin family thought that eighty-four was a lucky number, their lucky number. The name meant ‘lonely mountain’ in a far northern European dialect, the word was found by same Nain and he thought the word meant exactly what he wanted to build: the only place in London where you can find artistic treasures. They used to sell everything, from statues to little fountains, from paintings to tapestry, form ancient jewels to objects for the fireplaces and chimneys and all over London there was only one place who could compete with it: Mirkwood, the shop of Thranduil."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for those who thought I might have published a wrong story, I tell them we're in London now. The first chapter was just a dream of Bilbo. Now things are getting more senseful, I swear! I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am in writing it :)

Bip-bip.  
Bip-bip-bip.  
Bi-bi-pib-bip…

The sound of the alarm is usually not appreciated by the one who has to wake him or herself up, it is true, and it is true that it is especially despised when it interrupts a dream too, a good dream among other things. Because Bilbo was having a good dream. Not the kind of dreams which you can’t explain, with sur-realistic places, faces or dialogues: this one was a pretty good dream. Yawning, she tried to recollect her little memories of it, fast, before they could dissolve themselves into the shining sunlight that is killer to such nighty, peaceful dreams.

It seemed like the memory of another life: she was dressed with this beautiful light blue dress, with the skirt at her knees. Somehow it recalled a country dress that her grandmother had in her wardrobe: she said that was her best dress and she wore that the day they declared that the war was over and in her little town everybody danced all the night long; it was during the same night that she met her husband – Bilbo’s grandfather – and they danced ‘til the sunlight to some country music people played with broken wooden flutes. She – grandma Laura – said she never felt the same with any other person on the Earth, and she knew as soon as she saw him that he was the one. And indeed Mungo Baggins was the one she ever loved, forever: they, infact, died together, sleeping hand in hand with peaceful smiles on their rested faces. When Bilbo saw them, the very last time in which she saw her grandparents, she felt peace.

It is an uncommon feeling during a loss, but the long white hair of Laura was spread on the pillow like a white cloud and they embraced even Mungo’s hair, so much they were close. Mungo and Laura’s eyes were closed but not tightly, and the shadow of a smile lasted on their faces like pain never came. They seemed like two wax statues just finished by the artist and their hands were woven on the white sheets, right below the points where the pillows met. For Bilbo, this vision was like having a glimpse of what Heaven looks like.  
Suddenly something reminded her about the dream, maybe an invisible connection her mind did and she sadly noticed that the little details were gone, lost forever in the black hole were all dreams go. The vision of her grandmother laying with peace took away the last grip of a dream that during the night kept Bilbo peaceful and happy, wasn’t it ironic? She yawned, and stretched into her large, comfortable bed while the sunlight took over all the bedroom; some rays hit the glass of a photo and she smiled because she knew – even if she was still laying in bed – that that photo was her mother’s picture. In her mind the combination between the light and the picture meant that Belladonna was telling her to not waste time and get dressed, like she always did when she was alive.

Belladonna and Bungo passed away five years before, when Bilbo was just eighteen years old and she lived for a while with an aunt that had no children, but not so may months ago our heroine decided to come back and live again in the house of her childhood. It took her some time to clean up the whole house and see it shining again as like the old, good times were back. Sometimes, in the mornings, Bilbo swears she could smell the perfume of freshly baked pancakes and the water of the shower going on, but she knew this was nothing but a dream. And it will be wrong to dwell on dreams and forget to live.  
Bilbo sighed and decided to get up. Her warm foot met the clean parquet and wandered a little bit around searching for her sleepers: a pair of warm, white sleepers. In the meantime, she looked at the clock: the little hand, the hour one, was pointing the eight and the longer one was pointing at the six, so she wasn’t late yet. She thought she had the time to cook a full breakfast with bacon, eggs and some toasted bread with butter. If she ate well, she surely would be happier. And being happy, at a job interview, is one of the winning cards, it’s like in Jane Austen: it is a truth universally known.

It wasn't until later, when her hands were floating into her kitchen sink trying to clean a frying pan, that she remembered something else from her dream. She stopped and looked at the window, puzzled: she tightened her eyes in the effort of remembering. There was a man, a charming stranger with a blue coat and he was proud and… she blushed. It was clear that watching Pride & Prejudice in the evening was not healthy for her if she had begun to dream about a personal variation of Mr. Darcy! And so, the last detail of her dreams burned just like the others, destroyed by the light: the bringer of rationality.  
She finished washing her dishes without thinking again about that dream. She had to think about the job interview for the Erebor shop that was looking for an art expert. That luxury shop was well known not only in Great Britain, but worldwide and was in the City, not so far from Bilbo’s house – well, maybe a bit far but well connected by the tube which was the same thing.

It was true that she still spent just a little amount of her parent’s money – it seemed that Bungo and Belladonna had saved a big amount of money, fortunately for her – but she was provident and even if her simple life wasn’t so expensive Bilbo knew that the assurance of a regular income was necessary. After all, money don’t grow on trees and it could even end, sooner or later and she thought she had good chances to be chosen for that job: she knew of course English – her mother tongue - then Italian, Spanish, French and German she spoke that fluently and of course she was an art expert. She could date paintings, give them a place in the history; the same with statues and chairs, and a lot of stuff.  
Of only one thing she wasn’t sure. In the urban culture, in that surrounding there was always some sexy woman with glasses, a pair of long legs and a pair of high heels but Bilbo had short legs and she didn’t like wearing heels. She looked herself in the mirror and sighed. Her breasts were too big if you’d asked her, her face was round and she had those few kilos more than she should have because she liked to eat. Also, she didn’t like to wear too much make up, apart from a little mascara and eye pencil, she didn’t feel the need to cover herself with blushes or everything else and she knew this was unusual for a girl, but she couldn’t help it.  
Suddenly, while she was touching her own face, she remembered the appointment and realized she had to go out. Mentally, she reviewed the road: going straight to the tube – Arsenal stop -, changing the line from blue to red at Holborn and going out at St. Paul's. The Erebor company was founded long ago, under George IV, and they had their first establishment at Fleet Street, which is still there. In London the Durin family was the most important - after the Royal one, of course – and the richest, everyone knew the Durins and all of them hoped to be their friends, Bilbo did not. She hoped to get the job, that was all; she knew it was well paid and that’s all she needed at the moment.  
The doors of the train closed right behind her back and the travel began, among workers and teenagers, among paper Starbucks cups and the subtle smell of cappuccino around her. She asked herself what the future could bring, but she had no answer and tried to imagine herself going on the tube, used to the journey. A cup of hot latte in her hand, the morning newspaper on her legs and a smile on her face, as always.  
She shook her head, it was better not to dream and her reflection was pretty convinced too. On her knees no newspaper, just her CV waiting to be useful, to be the sword in that fac-simile of a war.

***

The Erebor shop was selling dreams, not just simple objects. Found by Nain in 1784, it took place in Fleet Street at the number 84 and because of this all of the Durin family thought that eighty-four was a lucky number, their lucky number. The name meant ‘lonely mountain’ in a far northern European dialect, the word was found by same Nain and he thought the word meant exactly what he wanted to build: the only place in London where you can find artistic treasures. They used to sell everything, from statues to little fountains, from paintings to tapestry, form ancient jewels to objects for the fireplaces and chimneys and all over London there was only one place who could compete with it: Mirkwood, the shop of Thranduil. The Mirkwood and the Durin family have been enemies for centuries, nobody even knew anymore why they were but nobody in both families found anyone appealing in the other. Legolas, son of Thranduil, was going to school with Kili, nephew of Thorin Durin, but they barely looked at each other if not for insulting. Durins were always dark haired, Mirkwoods were blonde; Durins became rich by hard work, Mirkwoods have been noble since centuries. Every rich person in London had to choose which shop to go and there was just a few who went to both places, and they had no great reputation in the high society.   
In the time of our story, the Erebor shop was property of Thror, Thorin’s grandfather. Thrain, Thorin’s fa-ther, had un unfortunate accident where he and his wife passed away, some years ago. They left two male sons (Thorin, the older one, and Frerin) and a daughter, Dis, who had children on her own: Fili and Kili. Thorin worked in the shop and was infact the owner, but not legally until Thror’s death or until Thror decided to pass his legacy on to him but he refused to do so until Thorin is wed. He and his best friend Dwalin were men of honor, but when it came to women, they were surely not the perfect match. They have never been in love, they loved beautiful women for a night and no more than that. The only woman Thorin swore to love was Botticelli’s Venus, if she would ever be in flesh and bone, but that was purely wishful thinking that couldn’t become reality. He went to Florence, in Italy, once when he was just a teenage boy and he immediately fell in love with the city and all its wonders, so much that he loved to come back at least once every year and everytime he went to visit the Uffizi Gallery. He could have stayed hours in front of the Birth of Venus and simply staring at the painting, he knew every shade of it. The white of the waves, the pink of the shell, the blue in the sky, every brush stroke was familiar to him. Venus was the love of his life.  
Even if he liked the models and often were the kind of women he went to bed with, he could not imagine a possible wife so thin and so independent. The Durins were considered mysoginists in that period when the feminism was a social imperative, but he loved the idea of a woman in the house, without a job, just a wife and a mother and this was one of the other reasons why he couldn’t find himself a wife. Whenever he thought about having a family what came into his mind was him coming back from work, a lovely woman not so tall and a little chubby welcoming him home with a kiss, wearing a kitchen apron while their children (of course more than one; usually a son and two daughters) were studying in the living room. And her hair had to be long, the longest he could ever see and had to smell like a field of roses. No, not roses but those flowers without a name, so colourful and so fragrant. He shook his head while he turned the key of the shop into the door and opened it.

The shop was large and contained about the tenth part of the merchandise, the rest – which was too pre-cious or too big to fit into the shop – was inside a big storehouse on the south of the Thames where they had a carpenter too, mister Bofur, and the accountant, that was Dwalin – his family had worked for the Durin since both families could remember and they were even cousins of some grade. Thorin and him grew up like brothers and they still were: the longest relationship for both of them.  
Thorin turned the little sign on the door to let people know the shop was open and placed the briefcase on a chair behind the desk. On it, there was an organizer open on that day, it said that the applicant for the art expert would be there in less than an hour, after the shop assistants usually came. A letter was resting under the organizer, it was an invitation for an auction where the most important jewel was about to be sold and he was planning to outbid the Mirkwoods.  
They called it the Jewel of the King, it was a stone which was different from every other stone on the Earth, and it was once Durin’s property. To make a long story short it passed from hand to hand ‘til it was found in the house of a gentleman recently arrested for collaborating with the Italian Mafia and an auction house put it on this Sunday's auction. Thorin was determined to take it back to his family, but the Mirkwoods thought it was property of their family, so the game was on. Sunday will be the great day.  
If everything went as planned, the Jewel of the King could take its place in that shop, exhibited but not sold in a beautiful place, maybe over by that painting by a Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s follower. Pride and a pinch of overrated self-esteem drew a smile upon Thorin’s face, anyway they were his best and worst traits and the major reasons why he got to be where he was. It was true, being Thror’s heir simplified his road to success, but if he revealed himself unworthy to rule the family’s business, there was no doubt whatsoever that his grandfather would have raised his younger brother – Frerin – above him. Only his sister could have been someway put apart: Durins have never been very feminist, his grandfather, well he of course was more misogynist than the younger ones but not so much as anyone expected it: he just didn’t like women to have important roles in the society.

Unfortunately for him, though, the majority of the applicants for the art expert job were women and Thror had to accept it, sooner or later but Thorin didn’t have the time to keep on thinking about the Jewel of the King, about his grandfather or the Mirkwoods as the wooden door rang the little bell while the first appointment of the day was opening it altogether with a large smile and a mass of sunshine coloured hair.


	3. To escape the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know” Kili said “there’s nothing wrong with being blonde. My brother’s blonde. Well, not as blonde as you, but…” he did not finished but Legolas laughed so hard he had to hold his head in his hands. Anyway he did not make almost any noise, he hardly broke any line of grace.

Bilbo and Thorin were sitting at same desk, only at different sides of it. The office in which the job interview took place was behind a green curtain, behind the shop desk and it was a small, welcoming office. It was warm and – as in the shop – there was wood everywhere, from the parquet floor to the ceiling and a little china cabinet was on Bilbo’s left while a quite old aged pendulum was on her right. After she took off her coat, she felt she was small and cold and the man – Thorin was his name, everyone knew Thorin Durin thanks to his several public appearances – seemed so confident and so.. manly. Yes, manly.

When she was little she liked to watch old movies with her father where men were all dressed in a certain way, spoke in a certain way and treated women in another certain way but when she looked around all that she saw was just a bunch of human beings with a penis, not worthy of the word ‘man’. She remembered that time when her mother told her when she met Mastroianni, an Italian actor when the Italian men where the ones that ‘did it best’ – she blushed thinking about the meaning of that sentence. Belladonna described him as the most charming man that ever walked this Earth but when the whole family went to Italy for the sixteenth birthday of Bilbo, men were not like this anymore.

All that Bilbo wanted was a husband and several children but she was not sure she could ever find what she was looking for: a man like Mastroianni, a man like Clark Gable. A man that shared her ideas about women and family. All of the men were feminist by now and not in the good way in which they thought women should have the same education and equal rights as the men, that was right. The modern feminism was a desire to overcome men, to make women superior to the men, which they were not. Bilbo always thought that men and women were equal human beings with different bodies and – as a consequence – different abilities and desires. It was a biological law, not social.

Whilst the thoughts and the pendulum were ticking, Thorin was looking at Bilbo’s CV, a pretty CV was it. On it, it was written all the competences the Erebor shop needed and she was good looking too, she was pretty and chubby and had an amazing smile, the kind of smile with the sun in it. Thorin sipped the cup of hot tea a shop assistant had brought to him as soon as she had entered in the shop: there were four shop assistants and Lysa was the one who had always something nice for her boss: a hot cup of tea, a nice Christmas present or just a sweet. If she did it all just to keep her job or because she really liked him, Thorin did not know but he always thanked and smiled the way he had to do. Right now, his attention was just for Bilbo and he tried to concentrate on the professional side, only   
the professional side of it.

She had a degree from the University of the Arts in London, she knew several languages which was useful because, even if the shop was located in London, they shipped the merchandise all over the world; she also had a computer licence. Thorin looked again at her, trying to ignore the smile, the sunshine hair, and he found a pair of eyes with the colour of brown autumn leaves, and the sun was in them too. She dressed as she popped somehow out of the 40s or 50s, with a long dress down to her knees that had a lovely design to look like the ones in those old photos, a fashion not so followed nowadays. A lovely neck of the dress, some buttons and she was like a doll, like a photo of his grandmother in her twenties. Thorin just loved the way she looked.

After he swallowed the tea sip, he broke the silence.  
“Your credentials are satisfying enough and your look…” he began to say, but Bilbo interrupted him.  
“I won’t wear shorter skirts, neither will I wear more make up. I know I shouldn’t say this but I won’t look like a prostitute!” she shook her head.

Thorin smiled. She really looked like she had emerged from the post-war period. “Nothing like that. I was about to say that your look is perfect, so I think you've got the job. Congratulations.” His voice sounded warm, Bilbo thought, but not hot: warm like the first day of spring. She shook his hand, blushing.  
***  
It was Phisical Education time at St. Kenna’s, the most prestigious college in London, and they were playing a football tournament between two classes. The peculiar thing was that they were not class against class, but the teachers mixed the people in the teams to increment trust among all the students and help them know each other. At first, when Kili found out that he was stuck in a soccer team with Legolas, he was not happy and Legolas wasn’t too. Their families grew them as they were enemies and infact they never spoke one to another, but after twenty minutes of playing they felt like they could be friends. Mr Harrison whistled the end of the first time and Kili let himself fall on the floor, trying to catch his breath. Legolas jumped upon him smiling.  
“Are you tired yet, Durin of my boots?”

Kili looked at him with his mouth wide open “Are you kidding me?” his face was red spotted and wet with sweat. Some strands of hair were glued to his forehead and his breath was not regular. “We ran for, like, forty minutes. That’s not human!” he said, between many pauses to catch his breath.

Legolas laughed “And we have to run for another forty. I won’t let your laziness let us lose the match!” and while he was getting up tried to put Kili again on his feet again, despite this one’s complaints. The way his father talked about the Durins created a very distinct image in his head, but that did not match the image Kili Durin gave to him. They were so different but when they talked there was something between them that connected.

“You know” Kili said “there’s nothing wrong with being blonde. My brother’s blonde. Well, not as blonde as you, but…” he did not finished but Legolas laughed so hard he had to hold his head in his hands. Anyway he did not make almost any noise, he hardly broke any line of grace. That was the way Mirkwoods were raised: no surplus, in anything, in laughing as in crying. They were noble, after all, and the fact that nobility didn’t matter as much as in past ages was not an excuse to behave as peasants, or so his father said.  
Kili slapped his shoulder. “Why do you laugh? There’s nothing to laugh about, it’s a disease!” he laughed too.  
***  
Dwalin did not knock, it was not one of his talents. He did not knock and turned off the electricity before Bofur could even swear in his irish accent. Bofur’s saw stopped and he swore before even turning around to see what was happening.

“Sweet cheerios!” he said. He didn’t even like cheerios, but he loved how the word sounded in every swear, so it was his way not to swear. You could not swear in your place of work, especially if Durin was your employer. Dwalin smiled and gave him one of the two coffees he had bought at the bar before he had to begin his working time.

“What time was it when you began to work, Bofur?” he asked, wrinkling his eyesbrows. His lack of hair gave him even more charm and sex appeal and that, from Bofur’s point of view, was pure injustice because if he’d ever become bald-headed, he would have been so damn ugly. Cheerios ugly.

“Seven o'clock. Give or take!” he said as he was talking about the new favourite cartoon of his three year old daughter. If you want the truth, he didn’t have a three year old daughter but two brothers, one of which had brain damage caused by a car accident. He liked to think it was the same thing, though it was not, but at least this gave a whole new prospective to the unpleasant scenery, a funny prospective too.

Dwalin almost spat out his coffee. “Why are you doing this?” he said. He liked is own job, for Christ’s sake he loved it, but it had never crossed his mind to begin work earlier than he should. It seemed as though that Bofur couldn’t stand the waiting, and his salary was half Dwalin’s one.

Bofur lifted his shoulder “I don’t like to be reminded all day of what I have to do. Plus, I really love the smell of the wood and the noise of the saw!” he smiled after a sip of coffee, which made his teeth pretty yellowish. Well, his smoking habit already gave him a bit of yellow in his teeth and a yellow stain on his middle finger, so nothing was astonishingly new on his aspect.  
Dwalin shook his head. “The only noise I can bear it’s the one girls make, certainly not the one my computer makes!” and he laughed. They were not afraid of these jokes because nobody in the whole Durin's business, was a woman.

“Aye, you work with dead things. My wood, it is alive!” Bofur patted some of the wood, with a proud face, but Dwalin laughed again.  
“Let me tell you, Irish boy, your work is so open to puns almost as open as your legs when you sit down and smoke your pipe!” he said and even Bofur laughed this time, and they both dumped their empty cups into the trash. But laughing was not the reason Dwalin came to him and when they both finished his face was deadly serious as he pulled his trousers up.

“Anyway, there are more serious things to worry about!” his voice was quite guttural and low as he threw a foreign financial magazine onto the desk. On the front page, a very charming man with an icy smile and a pair of eyes blue as the coldest sky.  
“He’s handsome!” said Bofur with a smirk, looking at the man “Are you planning to bat for the other side?” He said and looked upon Dwalin once again. The older man shook his head and leant upon the wall. “That stinky face is named Smaug Thundernorth. He’s aDanish. He wants to fuck us up!” this was a perfect summary of the situation, it has to be said.  
“Wait, you know Danish?” Bofur was confused once again. His confusion was one of the reasons why his salary was half Dwalin’s.  
“I don’t speak Danish, I don’t even know what the fuck it’s written on that. But…” he rested on a wooden chair. For the seven seas, everything was wooden in that place! He already regretted his leather chair, up in his office, like if the ten minutes that separated them were endless. “…but voices rush. He’s now one of the most famous industrial man of Denmark, and – just like his fucked up ancestors – seems that he’s planning to conquer a little economic cell in London to conquer, little by little, this whole nation. Oh but monks are rare now…” his references to the Saxons invasions were pretty charming in that context, Bofur thought.

“And what a carpenter has to do with all of this?” he sniffed. “I mean, I care about my job and the shop, but.. you’re the smart guys. Dwalin c’m on, the most useful thing I could do is building him a stick and shove it up his…”  
There was a moment of silence in which the air was impregnated with the waiting. Dwalin was waiting, with his whole body: he wanted to see if Bofur would have really told something like that in the office, he was famous for not to do so. The other two men in the room were laughing low volume and they were waiting too, it seemed that even the air was colder.  
“…cheerios!” said Bofur to the end, smiling and everybody laughed, for the umpteenth time that day.  
***

Thorin escorted the young girl out of the shop, they shook their hands and made arrangements for the following day. Bilbo would be there at nine o’clock and after a quick review of the merchandise in the shop, he would have taken her to the store, for a review of the most precious things. Bilbo smiled and walked away, still a little shy – as a little blushing showed – and only when his lovely skirt turned the corner the wooden door had been closed.

Smiling at the shop assistants, he went on his road after the curtain that separated the shop form a pair of offices. He passed away his door and the store door, until his way was blocked by another curtain and before passing It, he took a deep breath. It was dark after the curtain, but he was used to it, it’s not unusual to have darkness surrounding you and happens especially when you cannot see the difference; at least, this time, he could see it.

A voice in the dark spoke. This voice liked to speak with a solemn tone, a vibration in every word it said and after all that years it didn’t matter anymore to Thorin, the only one who could speak to this arrogant dark creature.  
“Has she been there, finally?” it asked. Thorin could not say if it was looking in his eyes or if it was giving him the back, anyway was not his concern.

“Yes, she has.” He answered. He didn’t like to do this kind of thing, but it seemed that there’s no way to avoid it.  
“And?” the arrogant voice insisted in more words, even if the man didn’t like too many words.  
“And she will work here. Tomorrow will be her first day!”  
“That’s not what I wanted to know!”

Thorin took another deep breath before answering. He wanted to tell the voice to go and fuck itself but he knew he couldn’t. It was his last hope. “If I had anything to say to you, I’d say it. You know me.” He could sense that the voice was smiling.  
“Yes, I know you Thorin Oakenshield. As well as I know your kind.”


End file.
